Tuesday, November 05, 2013

The rules are the same as for the committee that will meet in December. Player bios and complete rules are available on the Baseball Hall of Fame website. Vote for zero to five names from the combined list of twelve candidates. 75% is required to be elected.

Balloting will end 11/11/2013 at 3:00pm EST. This is for all registered BBTF users, not just typical Hall of Merit voters.

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Before my ballot I'd like to mention that MMP voting is essentially finished for the careers of all players on this ballot. Also the only two players in the Hall of Merit are Joe Torre and Ted Simmons.

John was a pretty good player, and I think he deserves some extra credit for the surgery. I think Dr. Jobe should be in the hall of fame too. Simmons is certainly a strong candidate, and I probably would vote for him if I were allowed a sixth vote.

Joe Torre (he's deserving as a hitter and manager - espec. once you take into account his years behind the plate which typically kills one's chances of playing past 35. hell, 3B isn't great for longevity either)

Tony La Russa (PED is a smudge but not a dealkiller for me w/ managers or players)

Marvin Miller

Bobby Cox (great manager for long time...but 1 title and had 4 HOFs in their primes + Andruw Jones)

Ted Simmons (any catcher at 50+ rWAR should be an automatic)

I don't see anyone else on this ballot that's particularly deserving. Martin and Parker were great at their peak but their infamy is self-inflicted. Garvey produced more kids than walks. Enough w/ the relievers. Concepcion falls short and no idea why him over Campaneris.

To me, the last spot was a toss up between Miller, Parker, and Quisenberry. Miller had the longest lasting and greatest impact, Parker, at his best, was a beast, but in the end, I gave bonus points to whom was the most fun for me as a fan.

Feel bad about leaving Simmons off. He's well qualified, it's just that I see 5 better candidates.

Not sure I'd leave a player off before I left one of the others off, Ron.

It's a difficult question because these candidates are of different kinds. Frankly, it doesn't even make sense to include them all on the same ballot. Torre over Simmons is justifiable because Torre was close as a player and has the managing over Simmons, but even that kind of combined-work analysis doesn't really make sense.

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Anyway, I'd go with:

Cox
LaRussa
Miller
Simmons
Torre

Notes:

* If one of Torre/Cox/LaRussa, then all of them.
* That leaves the choice between Miller and Steinbrenner, which is an easy choice for me. Which is not to say that Steinbrenner doesn't belong.

Had there been room, would have likely voted for John. Could be talked into Quisenberry under the right circumstances. Agreed that Grich and Evans are serious omissions, and Hernandez has a good case also.

EDIT: If Bill James is eligible on this ballot, he's also a serious omission.

Hi, Bob. This is a rare opportunity to be able to ask a former player about something like this, so I'm going to take advantage of it. Would you vote for Simmons given enough ballot spots or is he not a HOF for you?

"Voting - The Committee shall consider all 12 candidates and voting shall be based upon the individual's record, ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the game. Electors may vote for as few as zero (0) and as many as five (5) eligible candidates deemed worthy of election. Write-in votes are not permitted."

Torre - in HOM as a hitter only, and rivals the other MGR candidates just as MGR
Simmons - shunned for not being Johnny Bench. geesh
LaRussa - annoying but successful and somewhat innovatively annoying as well
Cox - shoulda won more than once but ok

Joe Torre. Very close just as a player; add in 4 WS + 2 more Pennants + 7 more division winners + 2 more playoff appearances + 5th all time in wins, and it's a no-brainer

Bobby Cox. Record 16 playoff appearances, 1 WS, 4 more Pennants, 10 more division winners, 4th all time in wins with a .556 that is the best of the Big 3 up for grabs. Another WS or 2 would be nice, but this resume is more than sufficient

Tony LaRussa. 3 WS, 6 division winners Pennants, out of 14 playoff appearances, 3rd all time in wins. That is sufficient to overlook any negatives.

George Steinbrenner. Took over a team that had been totally screwed up by CBS, and turned them into a powerhouse, changing the economics of the game, while being a larger than life figure as Von Steingrabber. If you are going to elect owners -- and they are -- he belongs.

Marvin Miller. If you are going to elect owners, you should elect their Nemesis, who also changed the economics of the game, by getting the players more of their fair share.

I'm of the opposite opinion of most people here. I think that Torre needs his playing career to hold up his dicey managing. I got to see Joe manage in STL for a few years, and he was downright bad. Then he moved to NYY and his two real credentials for managing suddenly popped up as being the most important skills in that environment: 1) Keeping the NYY press from blowing up the clubhouse, and 2) Keeping the owner from blowing up the clubhouse.

Torre is legitimately good at those two credentials, but in STL, where #1 is trivial, and #2 was nothing like keeping GEORGE! under control, his managing came down to roster/lineup selection and tactics and strategy. Torre was poor at all of those. In many of his NYY years, those credentials were not important, because you had so much talent that you could win if you could just keep the whole collection of egos pointed in the same direction. Torre could do that, but was there any other environment where those two credentials would have been the paramount ones in the environment? Probably not, and then its back to rosters, lineups, strategy and tactics.

So I don't end up thinking that Joe's managing outweighs Ted Simmons playing his entire career at catcher, instead of fleeing to 3B and 1B for the back half or more. - Brock Hanke

Miller-It's a farce,and sheer spite, that he's not all ready in.Changed the landscape not only of the game,but pro sports. A landmark figure in sports history.

George the Third-Took a $2M investment (And promised not to interfere! Remember that?),turned it into the most valuable franchise in American sports.Not to mention 6 titles and changing the game.People can ##### and whine all they want.Lots of teams had the same base opportunity as George did (I'm looking at you Cubs, Dodgers and Mets). Few even tried.George remade the Yankees into the beast they are today,and in doing so, helped drive baseball into the modern era. It's impossible to tell the story of baseball in the last 50 years w/o him. And I say this as a Red Sox fan who spent most of my life despising the man.

Torre-I like his career less than most but 4 titles in 6 years,especially under George? Yeah,that gets my vote.

Cox-Took the Jays to the brink of the series (The year BC beat them the ALCS had just expanded from 5 to 7 games.Had it still been five,the Jays would have won 3-1). Quit and built the Braves farm system,then took over the reins for one of the great runs in history.

LaRussa-Love him. Hate him. The man changed the game.Won at every stop. Went out on top. The single most influential manager post Martin(Who it really kills me not to vote for.)

I don't think much of the players on the ballot – well, at least as far as the Hall of Fame goes. They were terrific players and great gentlemen. Garvey was a great competitor, no matter what his status as a running joke around here.

Four of these were easy choices. The fifth came down to Martin or Steinbrenner, and really, how can anyone vote for George in that race? :)

1. Joe Torre - I'd probably vote for him as a player. I'd probably vote for him as a manager. The combination becomes a no-doubter.
2. Bobby Cox - If there are going to be managers in the Hall-of-Fame, Cox should be one of them.
3. Tony LaRussa - ditto
4. Ted Simmons - deservedly in the HOM
5. Tommy John - Very good for a very long time; small bonus for the surgery, but I don't think he needs it.

I have nothing against Marvin Miller, beyond the fact that I'm not a huge fan of non-players/managers in the HOF in general. Mostly, I just ran out of ballot space.

The other two players that I could be persuaded to vote for are Parker and Quisenberry although I think I lean "no" on both of them right now even without the ballot limit.

Martin would be kind of borderline - undeniable success, but undeniably short-lived - even without the ballot limit. A Hall-of-Fame with Tom Yawkey probably has room for George Steinbrenner, but I'm not a big fan of the fact that the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown has Tom Yawkey: as I said above, I'd prefer the Hall stick to honoring on-field personnel. I think that's everybody.

"I think that Torre needs his playing career to hold up his dicey managing. I got to see Joe manage in STL for a few years, and he was downright bad."

Well, Torre's use of Rivera in the postseason was not only spectacularly shrewd, I'm not convinced who else would have been as aggressive. use in tie games, use for 4 outs, 5 outs, 6 outs - whatever was necessary. considering Rivera's results and the narrow margin of many of the postseason series, Torre should get a lot of credit for that.

#59 As I noted in one of the Rivera threads, not only did Rivera pitch quite a lot better than his opposite numbers in the playoffs he pitched quite a bit more. The WPA difference between Rivera and his opposite number is huge.

And while I'm not a huge fan of WPA in general (at least as a measure of value -- I do think it has use as both a narrative stat and a tie breaker), I think it's a very good way of looking at the impact of short relievers.

Further to # 60, Rivera pitched 141 playoff innings and had a 0.70 ERA. His opposite numbers pitched 90.1 innings with a 3.69 ERA. Yeah, the Yankees generally had a better offense but nothing close to that kind of difference.

His WPA in the playoffs was 8.8. The opposite numbers combined for a WPA of .6. A big part of that difference is Torre's much more aggressive handling of Rivera compared to the way his peers handled their relief ace (or ace setup guy for the time Wetteland was the closer)

I would like to point out that one of the things I thought about was "What does a team really look for in a manager?" If you've got a really terrible team and you're looking for a manager that can turn it around and make it a winner in only one year, that's something Cox and LaRussa couldn't do, and Torre sure as heck couldn't do that.

But Billy Martin could. He did it multiple times with multiple teams. So I think that should be noted.

The more I thought about it, however, I thought stability counts for something. A stable manager (with a stable front office) can build a program that may not necessarily take off the first year but can start becoming successful within 2 or 3 years and maintain some success for a period of years. Both Cox and LaRussa were able to build that kind of situation with multiple teams, so that's where I give them the edge over Martin.

Torre I have weighting about 80% on his playing career and 20% on the managing. I don't think he's in the same league as the other guys as a manager but I think he was terribly underrated as a player.

Simmons is an example of a guy who just played at the wrong time. Had he played at virtually any other time in history he would have been an easy lock for the HOF. He was seriously dinged by an age of misinformation, too. His reputation defensively was about the same as the media portrayed Piazza in a later generation. At the time, back in the '70s, no one was carefully tracking % of runners thrown out stealing like they do today. Yet his image as portrayed in the media was that he couldn't throw anybody out. Now that we have the actual numbers at our disposal we can see that this was a totally false appraisal. But when a narrative gets going, facts only get in the way.

The only way any baseball owner should be inside the HOF is if (s)he buys a ticket.

Adding on to the comments about Torre, he was also good at switching between regular season managing and post season managing. As a former full time player, he understood the long grind of the 162 game season, and the need to rest his regulars. So long as you keep winning series, you will end up on top.

In the post season, he recognized that every game was crucial, and he played to win the one in front of him now. My favorite move of his was when he pulled Neagle in the bottom of the 5th, one run game, Game 4 of the 2000 WS, and brought in David Cone to face Mike Piazza.

Torre I have weighting about 80% on his playing career and 20% on the managing. I don't think he's in the same league as the other guys as a manager but I think he was terribly underrated as a player.

I think he's terribly overrated as a player, at least from what I've seen at BBTF. I disagree with simply calling him a Catcher and saying he compares well with HOF Catchers; he played only 41% of his career as a Catcher. I've tried looking at him many different ways to assess his HOF worthiness as a player, but I just don't get there no matter how I turn it.

As an example, today I compared him to Catchers through age 29, as that was the last time he was one and it seems to be the most common argument for him, that he's a HOF Catcher. He definitely looks like a HOF Catcher for that period of a Catcher's career, except for one crucial element. Even during that period of his career he was only a Catcher about 65% of the time. Other HOF-level Catchers to that point in their careers were catching over 90% of the time. Mauer, the next lowest, was about 80%. A portion of the reason why he looked like a HOF Catcher early in his career was he had a significant amount of time when he was not behind the plate, making it easier for him to hit and stay fresh.

Then take a look at him from 30 through 36, the end of his career, and compare him to 1B and 3B. Does he look like other HOF 1B/3B for that period of his career? No, he does not. He's a bit short on playing time, he's not overwhelming on offense, and he's a poor defender. He doesn't have a HOF resume for the latter one third of his career (if you compare him to the positions he played). Although he looks like a HOF for his early career, thanks in part to not having to be a full time Catcher, he does not look like a HOF for the last one third. It's just not enough, unless you're a Big Hall proponent. I don't think he's even a good choice for a Medium Hall. Not enough time as a Catcher and not nearly good enough as a corner IF.

Hi DL. I compared Torre's performance from age 30-36 to other 1B and 3B at the same age. He was a bit shy on both playing time and bat, and he was a poor defender. He is not comparable to HOF qualified players at those positions for the last third of his career. Saying he is similar to Pie Traynor in his 30's does not seem like a HOF credential to me.

Ted Simmons - should've been in a long time ago
Joe Torre - should be in already as a player, one of the great managers
Bobby Cox - One of the great managers
Tony LaRussa - ditto
Marvin Miller - Should've been elected while still alive, but they waited too long again

"I think he's terribly overrated as a player, at least from what I've seen at BBTF. I disagree with simply calling him a Catcher and saying he compares well with HOF Catchers; he played only 41% of his career as a Catcher."

Torre did not get to have his overall offensive stats measured in HOM balloting as if he was a catcher. He was in that positional category, but he was fully dinged by our electorate for both not catching that much and not being great at it. He would have done far better in the "Catchers" voting otherwise. He was one of the "sandwich" selections, really, as a player alone - the HOF elected about 60 duds and we found better choice.

But the fact that he even made that group as player only and yeah, his team won a memorable postseason game or two means that that it's pretty silly to deny the guy (even ignoring the Rivera edge that he so well exploited).

a manager that can turn it around and make it a winner in only one year [ ] Torre sure as heck couldn't do that

There might be something to say for Torre in that regard, though. Nobody was as extreme as Martin in taking a team straight to victory. And Torre didn't take the Mets anywhere; and he caught the Yankees on an uptick, and they were the Yankees. But he did win a division his first year in Atlanta with a club that had been mediocre at best for many years, and two straight in LA with a team that had been futzing around aimlessly for a while. Those stints were relatively brief and are maybe nothing to write home about in the grand scheme, but they're very positive indicators for him knowing what he was doing in a dugout.

32. alilisd Posted: November 05, 2013 at 03:40 PM (#4594432)
Hi, Bob. This is a rare opportunity to be able to ask a former player about something like this, so I'm going to take advantage of it. Would you vote for Simmons given enough ballot spots or is he not a HOF for you?

No. He got a hit off me in his one AB - letting him, into the HOF would up the BA of honorees from .222 to .263.

Actually, no. I am a very small HOF guy and would not include Simmons - and would not have included many of the current members of the Hall that compare with Ted.

I would have voted for Torre (even just as a player), Cox, LaRussa, Miller and Simmons given the 5 limit. Unlimited I would have also voted for Steinbrenner (a lot of thought, I see both sides to it, but I tend to lean towards a yes if it's close enough to think deep about it), John (high on my HoM ballot each year), Martin and Concepcion.

While I'm glad Quisenberry made the ballot, just in a "don't forget about this guy, especially if you elected Sutter," way; I don't endorse the selection of Sutter and Quisenberry had a really short career, even with all of those hi-leverage relief innings in the early 80s.

Was Bobby Grich eligible for this ballot? If so, how on earth did he miss it?